


twist of fate

by myloveiamthespeedofsound



Series: Wherever I Go (I'll Be Looking For You) [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 23:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myloveiamthespeedofsound/pseuds/myloveiamthespeedofsound
Summary: Steve has the number 94 in black ink on the inside of his wrist. And it honestly felt like a joke more often than not. His Ma had 17 in tiny script in the same spot and his Pa - God rest his soul - had 21. Steve knows his must be a mistake. A cruel twist of fate that he tries his hardest not to think about.94.





	twist of fate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2017 Romanogers Secret Santa.

 

Steve has the number 94 in black ink on the inside of his wrist. And it honestly felt like a joke more often than not. His Ma had 17 in tiny script in the same spot and his Pa - God rest his soul - had 21. Steve knows his must be a mistake. A cruel twist of fate that he tries his hardest not to think about. 

Like he was even going to make it to ninety four. A fact that gets hammered home with every bout of the flu, every cough he can't quite shake. Every doctor who takes one look at him and wonders how he even made it to twenty. So yeah, it has to be a mistake. Has to be some cosmic joke to add to the other cosmic jokes that made up his life. 

"One oh three," Bucky says one afternoon. 

" What?" Steve asks. 

"One oh three," Bucky repeats. "That's what mine says," and there's a hesitation to the words, like he's half expecting Steve to call him out on it.  Steve gets it though.  A hundred and three was even worse than ninety four and both seemed more than a little improbable.  Steve has never had the guts to speak of his own, hidden under the band of a watch for as long as he could remember.    


Of course Bucky would outdo him though.

So Steve just laugh, because what else was there to do. "ninety four," he answers. 

"Hope we're still good looking by then," Bucky offers with a laugh of his own. 

For the most part Steve doesn't think about it. He has a soulmate, they're out there somewhere and he will be ninety four when they meet.  _ If _ they even meet. So he focuses on other things. More important things.  His Ma's declining health, then her death, the war that broke out, trying to get drafted and then the option presented to him when he couldn't.    


The war, the men under him… Peggy.  Peggy who was beautiful and smart.  Brave in a way that Steve couldn't help but admire.  Peggy who made his heart beat fast and made him  _ want _ in ways he had never really known.  And it wasn't soulmates, he knew that.  She knew that.  But it was  _ enough _ at the time.  Enough to just give in to those shy little smiles and longing glances.  Enough to talk about dancing and hold some idea of  _ someday _ in their minds to get the through the long nights on the front lines.    


But then everything changed and Steve found himself in a future he could barely understand.  A future he wasn't sure he would ever fit into.  A future that suddenly made ninety four a possibility.    


Not that he had time to think about that.  He went from the fourties to ice to unfrozen and fighting an alien army.  Not that he even really  _ wanted _ to think about it.  It just seemed like too much.  He had enough trouble as it was, didn't need to add trying to track down a soulmate out of the literal hundreds of people he encountered while he was -  _ technically  _ \- ninety four.    


Natasha has a scar on the inside of her wrist where a number once had been.  A number she'd never seen.  Wrists were always covered in the Red Room, under lock and key to keep the girls from seeing the numbers when they appeared.  Soulmate marks were nothing but an unnecessary distraction.  After all, they would never be allowed to find their soulmates so why even offer the smallest of hints.    


She's fourteen when they find hers on the morning checks.  Fourteen when a slice is cut into the delicate skin and the offending numbers removed with precision.  Fourteen when the start of that sliver of a scar starts to form where once the number had been. 

Years later she gives it passing thought here and there.  More a curiosity than anything else.  Natasha is nothing if not pragmatic.  Even if she  _ knew _ what her number had been the chances of her even realizing who it was were slim to none.  It could have been anyone she saw in that year.   _ Meetings _ were as involved as meeting someone who actually stuck around to that person you said hi to in the coffee line.  Nothing was guaranteed so why let it bother her.  Why let it take up more of her thoughts and effort than just a passing curiosity.   
  
Except then, there was Steve.  And as their easy camaraderie turned into a friendship which started to shift into something  _ more _ it was harder and harder to keep it just that.  A passing curiosity.  It was dangerous, she reminds herself, to think of the 94 Steve had showed her one day.  Dangerous to think about how Steve had been ninety four when they'd met.  Steve had met a lot of people that year after all.  It was the sort of fairy tale, true love thinking that she had spent a lifetime trying not to fall into.  A lifetime of being told it was wrong.     


Besides, she had no idea if the mark she had once carried 28 - the age when she had met Steve.    


So why let herself obsess over the unknown, when the  _ known _ was so much better.  And what she knew was this: that she loved Steve Rogers with every fiber of her being, that he made her want to be a better person and she actually  _ was _ when she was with him.  That he challenged her constantly and she him.  That he forced her to look at things for a different angle and see the world in a different light and somehow she managed to do to the same for him.  That he didn't  _ fix _ her but rather he patched up all the holes she had carried around for longer than she ever knew and helped her fix herself.    


And by some goddamn miracle she knew that he loved her too.

She's thirty one.  The world is at a - relative - peace.  And has been for a few months allowing them all some much needed downtime.  And for her downtime is the cozy apartment in Brooklyn, the sound of an early spring rain pattering against the window pane, the feel of curling up into Steve's side and their steady breathing as they just  _ enjoy _ the calm moment. 

There's a rustle and Natasha lifts her head as Steve starts to move.  But he only turns to pick up a pen from the bedside table, the one on top the sketchbook he kept there.

"Steve?" Natasha asks, the curiosity clear in her tone.    


"I've been thinking…" he starts.

Natasha chuckles.  "That's never a good thing."

He fixes her with a look but the soft smile ruins any malice that it might have had.  "Hey now," in a mock offended tone.  He uncaps the pen's lid and takes her hand, turns it to expose the inside of her wrist and that small sliver of a scar.  "As I was saying, I've been thinking…." 

Natasha's breath hitches as he presses the pen to her skin, just above the scar, and writes in his best penmanship  _ 28\.  _

"Steve…" she exhales.  "You can't - you can't  _ know _ ," she points out.  No one could.  The only people who had ever seen her number were probably long dead and even if they weren't it wasn't something they would ever tell her.  Even now. 

Steve sets the pen down and lifts her hand, dusts his lips lightly against where the mark now was.  He reaches a hand and brushes some hair from her face and smiles.  Certain and confident.  "Natasha… who else would it be?" 

She smiles at that, shy and sweet and ducks her head into Steve's chest.  Warmth flows through her and she realizes he's right.  Who else could it be if not him.  But still… she tilts her head up with a  playful smirk.  "You're a damn sap, Rogers," she teases and lets herself be wrapped up again, lips pressing to her own.  


End file.
